Mark Steyn posted a photo of the craven establishment, and while his article concentrated on the loss of heritage suffered by losing our connections with the past, I noticed a subtle difference between the Google Maps screenshot at the top of this post and the file photo at the top of his.

That's right, this place that panders to the eternal outrage of a primitive child race has no problem insulting normal and moral people by putting up the faggot flag and endorsing people who have made a fundamentally evil lifestyle choice.

In the meantime, call the poofter-loving Injun apologist out on his dumb decision. No, literally.

2017-12-26

As I write this I just got home from a family event in a medium sized Alberta city. Driving with other family members I figured it would be good to listen to some Christmas music, so I turned the radio to 92.5 Power Fresh 92, which has been incessantly playing Christmas music since December 1st.

So of course they don't play Christmas music anymore...as of today, they switched back to soft rock. This is patently ridiculous. I'm not the only person in my circle of friends who had family dinners today as well as yesterday, and whether background music or to put people in the mood on the drive over, terrestrial radio yet again fell flat. And for no perfectly good reason.

My mistake. I'd just been on the phone to an editor in London who'd wanted early copy for the late January issue because no-one was going to be in the office "over Christmas". I'd forgotten that, in New Hampshire, "over Christmas" means December 25th. In London and much of the rest of Europe, it's a term of art stretching as far into mid-January as you can get away with.

In Canada though, December 26th is a holiday and a well celebrated one. So it's really a shame that a radio station interested in playing Christmas music almost four weeks before Christmas can't play it the day after.

2017-11-26

Live from the city of Ottawa Ontario (which lazy broadcasters refuse to ever say, going with the hackney and cliched and makes-you-hate-the-city-even-more term "nation's capital") tonight is the 105th Grey Cup, and the end of the Grey Cup's lengthy eastern road trip.

Next year the big game returns to Edmonton...it should have been our turn this year but the Canada150 celebrations mandated a game in Ottawa instead. Of course, the Esksimos should have playing in the game but you're already sick of Eskimos fans complaining about this. Instead we have the despicable Calgary Stampeders playing against the detestable Argonauts of Toronto the most evil city in the world that deserves to be destroyed by nuclear weapons. Oh yeah, and a squaw lady playing the halftime show.

I guess if I need to cheer on anybody in this game it needs to be Ricky Ray: it's rumoured the former Eskimo will retire after this season if he leads Toronto to a Grey Cup. And because the only thing worse than the Stampeders playing a Grey Cup game in Edmonton is having them do it as the reigning champions.

2017-11-21

As I write this the Oilers are losing 7-2 to St. Louis. If this score holds it will be the second Blues win in a week against Edmonton, and the Oilers third consecutive loss. As a result, the Oilers will have 16 points in 21 games, and be on-pace for a 62 point season. Three times over this past decade the Oilers have finished with exactly 62 points (their lowest ever in a full season), so why not a fourth?

Don't forget too that the ArizonaPhoenix Coyotes beat Toronto last night and the NHL's worst team now sits with 13 points. The Vancouver Canucks (no, seriously!) are holding onto the last wildcard spot with 23 points, meaning the Oilers are twice as far away from a wildcard spot as they are from being the worst team in the league. Yes, last season and the playoff run were fun, but it looks like it will be a once-in-a-lifetime aberration.

So it's time now to do what Oilers fans traditionally do in mid-to-late November...start fantasizing about getting a #1 overall draft pick who will completely turn the team around.† Also part of the tradition is coming up with a slogan to chant as the Oilers continue to fall to the bottom.

† It's worth noting that the infamous Oilers H.O.P.E. line (Hall, Omark, Paajarvi, Eberle) has now officially and entirely been given/traded away

Svechnikov is an awfully long name to try and chant. "Be sov(ft) for Svechnikov?" Tonight I could accept "Lose to the Blues for Hughes" as a decent chant. "Disdain for McBain" seems to be stretching it. However you'll notice I deliberately skipped number one. Why? Simple: he's the best and most obvious choice.

So let's do it Oilers fans. Let's start practicing now, we'll have lots of chances to use it if the season continues like this:

So already there is some common ground between the two sides who usually disagree on everything. However, there is lots of common ground available, isn't there? There are lots of lessons we had learned on November 9th, and we all agree what they are. It's heartwarming, it's comforting, and it's inspirational.

Unfortunately, it's all totally bogus. Here are six things that aren't true about last year's election that both the right and the left have fallen for.

#6 - Undecideds won Trump the election: This comes up in every election in every country, and it never holds any water. Please stop, take a deep breath. Cosmopolitan very very very thinly disguised their contempt for non-voters, essentially accusing them of putting Trump in the White House. It doesn't matter, frankly, what the percentage of eligible voters who didn't vote was: they didn't cast a vote, and you can't assume that if you strong-armed all of them into a polling booth that they would pull the level you wanted them to pull. Maybe every one of them would have chosen Hillary and put her in the White House. Or maybe every one of them would have picked The Donald and he would have swept the entire country. After all, Trump did well with undecided voters in the third debate, but poorly in the first debate. The ultimate answer is that you don't know how they would have voted. In fact, they may not know either. They don't count, they never count. Never count voters who didn't vote.

#5 - The results are a major cultural shift: Remember what I said above? Ignore it. Now we need to count the undecided voters who didn't vote. As a percentage of the general population, in 2016 the Republican candidate won 26.07% of the potential votes. In 2012 the Republican candidate won 27.83% of the popular vote, and in 2008 the Republican candidate won 26.58% of the popular vote. Conversely, the Democratic candidate in 2008 won 30.82% of the popular vote, in 2012 the Democratic candidate won 30.1% of the popular vote, and in 2016 won 26.36% of the popular vote. Now look at this on a graph:

If anything, looking all the way back to 1992, it appears the Democrats have a pretty solid line of support (a slight blip in 2008) with Republicans getting their voters out with a much less consistent rate of production. But there's no real cultural shifts going on here: the tiniest change in the number of vote % can make a wild difference. Look at the Electoral College totals which I included for each party above the graph. The difference between the Democrats in 2004 and 2008 is striking: their seats in the Electoral College increased 45% (from 251 to 365)...by increasing their share of the national vote by 12% (and in real terms only by 3.3%). For those objecting to the Electoral College, that isn't uncommon. The Conservative Party of Canada won 99 seats with 32% of the ballots cast in 2015 while the Liberal Party won 184 seats with 39% of the popular vote...meaning each 1% of vote gained one party 4.71 seats versus 3.09 seats for another. That's just how it goes. -ed]

...hey, did you ever watch that "House of Cards" show? Doesn't it open up with that faggot Kevin Spacey choking a dog to death? Isn't he the hero of the show, and also a Democrat? Isn't that worse than 2/3rds of what Trump is alleged to have done and probably worse than anything he actually has done? I have no point here (there is a point to the actions of real-Spacey vs Trump), just an open question...

...

...are you ready?...

58%.

That's right. Donald Trump's share of the white vote is slightly less than Mitt Romney in 2012. Some of that is the Utah Mormons supporting Evan McMullin, and some will be going to Gary Johnson tripling his vote share from four years ago. Still, whites voted for the chap with (R) next to his name at a pretty consistent rate from election to election.

#3 - Women voted for Hillary: Similar to the bit about whites, Hillary did well with women, garnishing 54% of the female vote. She certainly can lord that over her predecessor who won in 2012 with...55% of the female vote. Which itself was a dropoff from 2008, where he had support from 56% of women voters. You can't even attribute any of this to Jill Stein: like Gary Johnson, she tripled her share of the national vote from 2012...however the sheer numbers are too small to make a difference. She went from 0.36% to 0.98%.

#2 - Blacks and other minorities voted against Trump: I put all of these as separate issues just to pad the numbers, frankly. It's all the exact same phenomenon. "Hateful racist" Trump received 8% of the black vote. Loving and inclusive Mitt Romney received less of the black vote share than Trump did, getting only 6%. In 2008, McCain received only 4%. In other words, Trump received the highest proportion of black votes for a Republican Presidential nominee since 2004, and almost the same share as in 2000. Trump received 29% of the asian vote, lower than McCain received in 2008 but higher than Romney received in 2012. Trump received 37% of the "other" racial votes, Romney received 38% and McCain only received 31%.

Finally, we come to Hispanics. Trump was infamously going to collapse with Hispanic voters and that alone would cost him the election, pollsters assured us. His comments on Mexican rapists and an end to illegal immigration across the southern border poisoned any possible relationship with American's hispanic population and doomed his candidacy. Now first you have to remember that 2000 & 2004 were huge outliers for the Republicans. George W. Bush (pbuh) was legendary in his relationship with Hispanic voters. In 2004, 44% of them supported him for President and was a major factor in securing his dominant win over John Kerry. In 1996 Dole only received 21% of the Hispanic vote, and in 2008 John McCain received 31%. 2012 saw Mitt Romney's share fall to 27%, shedding three-quarters of the 2004 gains over 1996. Trump again saw an increase of Hispanic voters versus Romney. Not 'yuge' by any means, but 29% of Hispanics (including 33% of Latino men) put a vote down for the guy with (R) next to his name, even though with the exception of "really large wall" his immigration policies were basically identical to the guy who got 27%. In other words, Hispanics voted for Trump at about the same level as they have been since spillover from a President highly regarded by Hispanics.

#1 - Polls are important and the pollsters got it all wrong: Those lying biased pollsters have upset literally everybody. Before the election, Trump supporters took to the internet to claim that organizations running the polls and the media reporting the both are both so biased towards Hillary that you couldn't take any of their claims at face value. Trump, they said, was going to win, and win big, and if the pollsters didn't agree they were lying to you. After the election, it's the left irate at these pollsters. Hillary supporters were under the impression that she had a strong lead going into the polls, and therefore weren't as motivated to get out and vote, thinking their girl had it all sewn up. The Guardian reports that the Democrats didn't devote much money to Wisconsin and Michigan because polls told them their lead was secure. However, the polls said Hillary would win and instead Trump won. I mean, the numbers don't lie, do they? You promise X and when X doesn't happen, you were wrong. What could be more obvious than that?

I suppose the better question is why are you believing polls in the first place? The old adage that the only poll that matters is held on election day carries a lot of weight, frankly. Much like how we never cared about movie box office receipts back in the day, we never used to rely so heavily on polls before either. It's mostly a function of an endless media cycle and our willingness to boil anything complicated down to a simple "who's winning" question. Polls are almost like watching a game, and keeping your eye on the score. It's important, I suppose: at the end of the game, the score is the most important thing. As it goes on, the score can help you understand a lot of what's going on...the question of "why are they bunting" or "why are they playing a neutral zone trap" is often answered by looking at the score. Similarly, polls could have helped you understand why Clinton had been going on about Muslims for the last three days of the campaign (a new poll had showed Trump's support among Muslims was increasing)†.

But that's in a case where all you care about is whether your side is winning or losing. In sports, that's most of us. But what if you're a professional scout looking at a junior or minor league team? Should our team sign that hot young prospect? If you're an NBA scout who gets asked that question, and your answer is "his team won the game 102-98" you are probably going to be fired within twelve minutes. Who cares? Did this hot young prospect even play in the game? If he did, what was his PER? And how did he look? Did you see things in his game that made you confident when he went up to the next higher levels that he would succeed? Does he have the specific qualities that the team is looking for? Does his nature and personality mean he would be a good fit in your locker room? You can see how for a person wanting to evaluate two candidates these analogies are far more applicable than score-watching. I suppose you could say it's a factor in how polarized we've all become...but then remember that graph about how few voting age Americans actually move their vote from election to election. The undecideds tend to decide all of these races by relatively narrow margins, and therefore how the media covers a campaign and what information the electorate is exposed to are major factors into how that election plays. As a result, poll watching is completely useless to the small sliver of the voting-aged public who will ultimately need to decide what the candidates are all about and decide the actual election.

† This is just an example.

Now understanding that the polls shouldn't be important, they were still wrong. Here's The Guardian again:

But analysts such as Silver, a man dubbed an oracle, a soothsayer and a savant have an interest in continuing to share these predictions. Where would the man’s career be if he simply replied “don’t know” when asked what Americans would do? It’s not just FiveThirtyEight. The New York Times also got it wrong, along with Reuters, NBC news and countless others. Just about everyone did – because they couldn’t resist the temptation to try to guess human behaviour.

Our forecast has Clinton winning the national popular vote by 3.6 percentage points, which is similar to her lead in recent national polls. Her chances of winning the popular vote are 81 percent, according to our forecast.

‡ Whenever somebody wants to show you an average, you really need to look at two pieces of information. The average itself, and the standard deviation. In a way, that's what the above analysis of white/female/minority voters was. Sure Trump only got 8% of the black vote, but when you consider his range was basically 4-11%, it puts the numbers into better perspective. If you really want to be a pro at this, when you receive an average ask what kind of average it is as well.

So "the pollsters" didn't necessarily get it wrong. They didn't fail to predict that whites would "vote for Trump in droves" because they didn't, anymore than Hispanics rallied the vote to "stop Trump" anymore than you could have stopped Trump by forcing undecideds into a polling station. They're all myths about the 2016 Presidential Election.

2017-11-01

6:27pm: I just got in from working late and already the Astros are winning 2-0 after a double, and error, and a grounder (with a stolen base in the middle). Houston has scored more this inning than they did all last night. Only one run is earned though. Darvish has been struggling, and it doesn't look to be letting up.

6:30pm: Yuli Gurriel is getting a ton of boos after the incident where he used a racial taunt against Darvish. Or was it the other way around? I forget. Neither of 'em are WASPs.

6:31pm: Also on TV right now is the Edmonton Oilers losing to playing against the Pittsburgh Penguins, a rematch of last week's game. May Connor McDavid get a little bit of Donald Trump's luck and skill...

6:33pm: Gurriel is getting a long at-bat here. 13 pitches later he flies out to right field. This half-inning was only about 10-12 minutes, but it sure felt a lot longer I'm sure to Dodgers fans. 2-0 Houston.

6:35pm: Boeing is really turning up the charm offensive against the Shiny Pony with this "Boeing cares about Canada" commercial aren't they?

6:37pm: The Shocktop is poured into a pint glass, the oven is on, it's pizza and beer and baseball night at Third Edge of the Sword World Headquarters in Sancti Spíritus, Cuba. And just on cue, a commercial for The Pint plays. Last year I watched Game 7 at MKT where it wasn't until the entire bar erupted in the 8th inning of that epic battle that management figured out we wanted to hear the game audio and not shitty Taylor Swift songs. There are definite advantages to watching these games at home.

6:38pm: That asshole Taylor (Chris, not Swift) blasts the Dodgers' first hit of the game and gets a leadoff double.

6:44pm: McCullers takes out the other asshole T (Turner) at the top of the Dodgers lineup. With a hit-batsman though...not a strikeout like I was hoping that sentence would mean.

6:50pm: Puig also gets hit, and now the bases are loaded.

6:52pm: That looked ugly for a second, but Pederson hit to SS and the inning is over.

6:59pm: Beautiful looking shot of the sky was just on. Having been to Dodger stadium I can say it's a decent enough ballpark that's more notable for its amazing parking than anything about the stadium. You can get a Dodger Dog there though. I can't get a Dodger Dog in Edmonton...which suddenly made me think of all those concession snacks you can pick up at Commonwealth Stadium during the Eskimos home game that is hopefully going to be decided on Saturday. (If it's decided on Friday, that's bad)

7:02pm: Darvish throws Gonzalez a slider that acts more like a changeup, and now it's runners on second and third with no outs. Darvish's night is almost over.

7:04pm: A sacrifice RBI by McCullers Jr. makes it a 3-0 game with 2 outs. LA is losing the narrative worse than Harvey Weinstein...

7:08pm: I was just mouthing "homerun" and Springer does it! Astros take a 5-0 lead and Darvish isn't going to last until the end of the second inning.

7:19pm: While I was wolfing down a Bacon Double Cheeseburger Delicio pizza, the Dodgers have come back. That's the big thing about LA I remember from the NLCS: you score on them and the next half-inning they come right back to score on you at least as much and quite often even more. You even saw it in the first inning, where LA loaded the bases (not entirely their doing, to be fair) and could have blown the game away the other way had Pederson hit out of the park.

7:22pm: McCullers gets out of a jam of his own creation again. This can't be sustainable, and A. J. Hinch agrees: just before the double play to end the inning he made the call to his bullpen. The starters aren't going to survive into the fourth inning.

7:27pm: Altuve flies out from a pitch from...CLAYTON MOTHERFUCKING KERSHAW! I would have thought Morrow would have stayed out for at least 2-3 outs. Kershaw can't go more than about 60 pitches tonight and the Dodgers might find themselves out of pitchers by the end of this game.

7:29pm: On the other hand, the Dodgers need 60 quality pitches right here and right now. Kershaw shuts the Astros out for the first inning of this game.

7:34pm: Seager gets a good hit that should be an easy double, but a slip and fall on the basepaths means he barely gets back to first. The Dodgers have been their own worst enemy for much of this game. And McCullers is his own team's worst enemy, hitting Turner again.

7:36pm: Bellanger is up and that's the only reason McCullers is still in this game. He swings wildly on the first pitch to justify Hinch's decision.

7:38pm: Bellanger strikes out again and that's McCullers Jr's night.

7:41pm: Penguins have taken a 1-0 lead in their game against the Oilers tonight. I'll be writing more about the Oilers in an upcoming blog post.

7:43pm: No team that plays this horrible rap/pop music during the World Series deserves to win. I'll be writing more about who deserves to win World Series matches in an upcoming blog post.

7:47pm: After three innings both starters are long-gone but the Astros still lead 5-0 and the Dodgers are leaving 2+ men on base every inning.

7:48pm: Nothing tonight can possibly make me happier than finding out these useless Toronto fans have to deal with a gametime other than 7:30pm ET, which apparently nobody in that evil city can possibly handle.

7:50pm: They just showed a shot of the 1960 World Series which ended with a home run hit past the fence...into the grassy area behind the fence. No seats behind the fences is the MLB version of the "no ads on the boards and no helmets" that you obsess over when watching old NHL footage.

7:53pm: Gonzalez takes second base on a wild pitch, after making it to first because the Dodgers didn't field his hit to third base properly. Houston is getting all the bounces, so let's not pretend this 5-0 score is just them doing amazing or Los Angeles falling apart.

7:59pm: Oilers take a 2-1 lead! Oh, and Kershaw is the third guy up to the plate but the Dodgers look likely to keep him in the game. Like I said, they need those 60 pitches.

8:14pm: It's like this it's like that it's like this nigger...another scoreless half-inning in the book. The game is starting to move a litle faster now that Kershaw is controlling the Dodgers pitching and the Houston bats have cooled off a little. The game also feels more like an "anybody can win this" than it looked after the second.

8:20pm: Seager takes a walk after a long at-bat and now Turner is up with 1 out and a runner on first. The crowd is surprisingly involved in the game to this point. God I hope Turner breaks his leg and it gets infected and he never plays again.

8:26pm: A bounce finally goes LA's way: Turner is on-base after a ball dribbles into the left field, and in the fifth inning with a 5-0 score the 5th pitcher of the game is going to the showers.

8:30pm: The second chubbiest negro pitcher in the major leagues (Liriano, first place going to C.C. Sabathia) is on the mound now. He gets an out but Dodgers still have runners on the corners.

8:34pm: Now Chris Devinski is on the mound. Okay Hinch here's the deal: I can liveblog every pitching change you do in this game, but I also have a beer to drink and I have to manage the time a little bit here. Sorry buddy.

8:44pm: Every time Brian McCann is up to the plate I keep thinking about Brian McCabe, the Toronto Maple Leaf who liked to knock up chubby squaws.

8:48pm: Both managers are basically trying to outsmart each other. Hinch is replacing his defensive outfielders with pinch hitters and forcing Dave Roberts to micromanage his pitching plans to compensate. Kershaw has bases loaded with two outs.

8:49pm: Houston got played. 5-0 in the middle of the sixth, two and a half hours after this game started.

9:00pm: Edmonton and Pittsburgh are tied 2-2 halfway through the third period. Dodgers have two baserunners again, the question now will be whether or not they can capitalize on this situation. Barnes pops out for the first out.

9:01pm: Dodgers score a run. Ethier barrels one into the right field gap and Pederson crosses home plate.

9:04pm: Pittsburgh has taken a 3-2 lead with about 7 minutes left on the clock, and a now-thunderous LA crowd is quieted instantly as Chris Taylor swings and misses. 2 outs. 5-1.

9:05pm: Seager shatters his bat in a fashion that befits the phrase "shattered bat" and almost runs out the hit but not quite. LA is on the board but Houston still has the lead.

9:07pm: I think my Labbatt Blue has gone skunky. Being Labbatt Blue (or "Labatt's Blue" as my father would say) it's not easy to tell.

9:10pm: Beautiful sliding catch by Chris Taylor deprives Springer of another hit in the World Series.

9:14pm: I'm disseminating the accounts of this game and I don't have express written consent of the Office of the Commissioner of the Major Leagues of Baseball. Come get me, bro'.

9:17pm: Altuve gets a walk and the Oilers are 40 seconds away from losing yet another game.

9:18pm: Altuve steals second and the clock winds down in Edmonton.

9:25pm: Keuchel is warming up in the Astros bullpen and Turner breaks his bat on an easy popup to first.

9:26pm: It's worth noting that this game has now exceeded three hours.

9:28pm: Houston shuts the Dodgers out again and we move onto the final two innings. 90 minutes ago I bet somebody the game would be over by 9:50pm. Looks like I'm about to be humiliated.

9:35pm: It's interesting as they go through crowd shots how few celebrities they can find at a Los Angeles Dodgers Game 7. Contrast that with the LA Lakers, or for that matter the Chicago Cubs last year. They can't all be in counseling after being ass-raped by Kevin Spacey, can they?

9:39pm: Joe Buck just mentioned that Dodger Stadium is the third oldest ballpark in the majors (after Fenway and Wrigley). I've been to all three, but I'm wondering who the fourth is. The answer? Angel Stadium in Anaheim (which I've also been too, which is really nice.

9:44pm: Forsythe pops out and now the Dodgers have 4 outs left to go. Can they finish this game is under 6 minutes?

9:45pm: Mavin may not be a defensive specialist but he can catch a ball, and we're into THE NINTH INNING OF GAME 7 OF THE WORLD SERIES. It doesn't get more exciting than this...except of course for when it does. Exciting hasn't described this game since Kershaw first handled the rosin bag.

9:49pm: Verlander is now pitching in the bullpen, just like Greg Zaun predicted. Here's time for your regular reminder that Greg Zaun took steroids. But Jamie Campbell can't say "Cleveland Indians". Man I wish TSN had the rights to more things.

9:51pm: Springer has been quiet in the back half of this game (everybody has, to be fair), but now he's at-bat and wildly swinging at everything.

9:54pm: The good Chase (Utley, not Hedley) is pinch hitting to start the 9th inning. Still 5-1 Houston.

9:55pm: Utley strikes out. Maybe should have gone with Hedley? And how many kids in America got named "Chase" in the past 20-30 years? Did they all become big league ballplayers?

9:58pm: Chris Taylor breaks his bat and is thrown out on his way to 1st base. Cory Seager might be the Dodgers last batter of the 2017 series.

9:59pm: They did it! Seager thrown out at first on an easy play and the Houston Astros have their first ever World Series trophy!

10:00pm: The crowd has been quiet for most of the night but they sound like zombies now...appropriate enough for the day after Halloween.

10:06pm: Some highlights from the box score... Springer hit .379 tonight and Gattis is the only other hitter in this game over .300. Each team used 5 pitchers on the night, and only Kershaw and Morton went longer than 2 1/3 innings. Morton is awarded the win and Darvish the loss, despite them pitching on opposite sides of the game.

10:09pm: Altuve is the worst interviewee. Well, one of the worst. The worst still has to be every negro on the Eskimos during our 2015 Grey Cup win. All Walker or Odel Willis could do is yell tribal woots, meanwhile Reilly and Justin Sorensen were giving thoughtful interviews.

10:13pm: Greg Zaun is a horrible guy and a horrible player on a horrible team. But he hates and doens't understand millennials, so God bless him.

10:15pm: "The Houston Astros are your World Series champions!" The least creative trophy name ("The Commissioner's Trophy") in sport is officially being given to Jim Crane...the owner? Really? You guys give the owner the trophy first? Worst trophy presentation overall, I suppose.

10:19pm: Anyways, the game is over. The Houston Astros are the World Series champs, my cable box just shut off after 3 hours of inactivity and I don't feel like turning it back on. This didn't hold a candle to last year's epic game, and to be fair even if you aren't a Cubs fan you can't say that Houston finally winning a World Series compares to the Cubs ending a drought so long that the previous Cubs WS win wasn't covered in HDTV, or colour TV, or TV, or even radio...it was in newspapers. So this was a decently long drought ended in fairly pedestrian fashion. Good on you, Houston. #HoustonStrong or whatever bullshit that's about. Goodnight.

2017-10-31

Hey remember McG? He directed both of the Charlie's Angels movies, the least-loved Terminator film, and then sort of fell off the directoral map. He's been doing smaller stuff lately, but his newest medium-sized thing was the direct-to-Netflix film The Babysitter. The film is a action-comedy with gore similar in spirit to Re-Animator (except no dead bodies) and while the poster is ripping off the Cary Elwes 90s movie The Crush I think is McG trying really really hard to rip off make something in the style and tone of Zombieland (except, again, no dead bodies).

Cole Johnson (Judah Lewis) is entering the rough and tumble teenaged world. He still hasn't started thinking sexually about his female best friend and bullies tease him because his "balls haven't dropped". He's a geeky guy not interested in sports and is scared and nervous about almost everything, from flu shots to heights. He can't understand his daredevil Mom (Leslie Bibb, just happy to be in something since The Zookeeper who gets surrounded by the world's largest spiders without flinching, and is too scared to even drive in an empty parking lot with his Dad. He's the classic introvert, uncomfortable with almost everyone except his best friend and his eponymous babysitter "Bee".

Bee is played by Hugh Weaving's niece Samara, who you may recall was involved in that thing last year where she was horrified to be mistaken to be a Trump supporter. Well it turns out "being mistaken for good when she's really evil" is a thing for her. When we first meet Bee she saves Cole from the aforementioned bullies (who taunt Cole with the same jokes Mike at RedLetterMedia used in the Alienator episode: "cole slaw", "cole lesonscopy") and then tries to help Cole be stronger and stand up to those who wish to do him harm. She's clearly been his babysitter for years, back when he was the age where he should have babysitters, and she and him have a special bond that is just starting to crack as he starts thinking about her breasts. When Cole's parents go away for a marriage-saving weekend at the Hyatt, Bee shows up to have dance parties and re-create scenes from Billy Jack, which is not the sort of movie you'd think a nerdy boy would take a shining to. After touching moments between the two of them where Bee again tries to build Cole up into a better man, Cole goes to bed for the night...but decides to stay up and see what Bee does when he's asleep.

What she ends up doing is having a ragtag group of friends over, including the nerdy Stuart who at first we are led to believe is dating Bee but quickly is revealed to be the new guy. He really comes across as a future Cole, drawing a spying Cole into thinking he and his gorgeous babysitter might one day be an item. She engages in a sexy spin the bottle game where she kisses all the boys (and girls), and an excited Cole thinks this is the greatest thing ever...until during a makeout session ends with Bee pulling two knives out of an outfit that couldn't possibly hold two knives and stabbing Stuart in the head. The friends pull up with cups and start harvesting his blood as Bee pulls out a satanic book and makes plans to harvest the innocent boy (who doesn't even know the difference between a prostitute and a Protestant) sleeping upstairs.

Cole tricks the gang into thinking he's still asleep (Bee tried to drug him earlier) as they harvest his blood for another part of the ceremony, but the shock of the needle (he couldn't handle one earlier) and the rush of trying to escape out his window causes him to pass out, and he finds himself tied up by the Satanic cult. They need his blood for a ceremony and Cole tries to use a pocket knife to cut the ropes (just like Drew Barrymore in the first Charlie's Angels film), but both plans are foiled by the cops. The cult manage to kill both cops but during the scuffle sexy cheerleader Allison (Bella Thorne)) gets shot and then the black guy (Andrew Bachelor) dies trying to get Cole from his room upstairs. Cole overcomes his fear of spiders to climb into the basement and outwit Sonya (Hana Mae Lee) with a model rocket in a scene partially ripped right from The Gate. He then gets caught by Max (Robbie Amell) who is interested in killing Cole (and cops, and everybody) but like Bee respects Cole enough to want him to grow as a young man, and tries to get Cole to stand up to the bullies who randomly decided to egg his house. After Cole's failure standing up to the bully he ironically/temporarily overcomes Max thanks to specific fight tricks taught to him by Bee earlier in the film. Ultimately the bully's eggs are what is Max's downfall, and soon it's just Cole vs. Bee (after a brief interlude with a not-dead Allison). Cole burns the satanic book, and while Bee is trying to put the fire out Cole steal's a car from his best friend Melanie's dad and drives it into the house (using the roof of his half-dismantled treehouse as a ramp...symbolism!) crushing Bee. The two of them have a final touching moment before Cole walks about to the admiration of the bullies and his growth into a young man who has overcome his fears.

There's a lot to like about this movie. Lewis is pretty good as a kid actor and while Emily Alyn Lind is way too hot for him as his next-door neighbour and future-girlfriend it's not that much worse than Toby Maguire and Kirsten Dunst. Samara Weaving does good as both good-and-evil Bee although too often they seem to be two different characters (more on that below). The cult members are all cardboard cutouts played by sub-par actors, but that's just par for the course for an action-comedy with heavy gore elements. The world is a bit of a cartoon universe with comically large spiders and bullets that don't act in any way related to Newton's Third Law of Motion. The real problem with the movie, bizarrely enough considering how important they are to this movie actually working, is the character of Cole and Bee's relationship to him.

Cole is a nervous nelly scared of everything, until you put a giant knife in his hand and ask him to jab it into a model racecar that would require small and precision instruments. He's too young and innocent as 12/13 year old to know what an orgy is despite looking it up on Google, but give him a couple hours with the "Mad Men" Wikipedia page and he's an expert in the themes behind the film. He can't handle scary movies (or "Mad Men") but has watched The Godfather Part II. Shit hits the fan and suddenly he has overcome almost all of his fears instantaneously. I understand they need to play up the "innocent" angle but I was hoping that would play into the film more: as Cole becomes more hardened he stops being the innocent boy with the magic blood Bee needs for her ceremony. Meanwhile he and Bee clearly have a major rapport built up over years. Despite the fact that they dance together, lay almost touching, and frolic in the pool while Bee wears a bikini he occasionally is now thinking about her sexually but that doesn't impact any of their other interactions, including when he taunts her about dicks and when she talks about how he's going to be a ladykiller as he stares at her longingly. Bee is also playing a very very long game where she's just getting close to him for the satanic ritual, right? So why did she spend years getting close to him for her plan to finally come to fruition? You might think she needed more people in the satanic cult but it's clear that they are just tagging along with her (and so we have cast members brutally killed on-screen), so she could have made this move anytime. She presumably has always had access to the book. Before the violent attack on Stuart entirely for the audience's benefit everything we see from Bee screams total sincerity. She could have still exercised her plan without building Cole up and making him cry with their tenderness together. So we're left to imply between those scenes and the touching moment between them at the end that Bee really does really like Cole and really did bond with him. But except for a 2-second glance after taking his blood she doesn't seem to have any of those feelings after we the audience discover she's evil. It almost seems as if kissing Allison turned the good Bee we'd seen into an Evil Bee until the evil was driven out (no pun intended!) after she's hit by the car. Weaving plays the character as two completely different people with basically no bleeding between them. It almost seems like the typical possession scenario: Evil Bee has learned all of the things about Cole she needs to implement her plot (his cop dreams, his lying tells), but because Good Bee didn't know about Evil Bee she was also giving Cole the tools he needed to eventually defeat Evil Bee and win the day. It could have worked had Bee just been a part of this cult being used by Max or Allison, and the killing of Stuart unleashed a demon that took over Bee. But instead Bee set it up the whole time: Cole wasn't the first time she did this either.

And that's the final part of the story that falls apart: does Satan's book work? Bee tells the others that once they perform the ritual they would get "everything they ever wanted". She tells Cole that she was once weak like him and wanted to be strong, and used the book on previous victim(s?) in order to gain the confidence we see from her throughout the film. But was it all in her head? What are the limits of the book's power? After Allison was shot Bee and the gang basically made it seem like she was a lost cause and wasn't going to be taken care of...Allison presumably wanted something related to her journalism out of the book, but couldn't she change that to be "I want the bullet removed from my boob"? We never see any power from the book, so it's never clear what the gang's plan actually is. If you want me to join your cult where I murder two people including a young boy and we do it in his suburban house then the book better have some supernatural powers to make the giant risk worth it. Since we never see any effects of the book, we're left unsure why these people are so gung-ho. We're also unsure why they can't kill Cole at the beginning but once he escapes they all want to murder him rather than retrieve him.

Sure this all takes place in a fantasy world where nobody notices a hot blonde dragging two cops into their cars with the sirens blaring, or where "10 and 2" graphics illuminate onto steering wheels (did I mention this was stylistically aping off Zombieland or Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World?), but we still need a bit of an understanding of how the world works. I assume the book does something supernatural, that's how Bee was able to escape the car in order to attack the cops in a mid-credit sequence that won't help her plan at all. McG brings a few of his typical visual styles into the film: he loves cars smashing into buildings and girls in jean shorts sitting on chairs. This all helps the film does maintain a bit of a sense of fun, and actually made me really think about the second film in the Halloween double feature.

Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil is like Deliverance only backwards. A group of "college kids" head out to the backwoods of the Virginian Appalachian Mountains where they have a bunch of scary encounters with a pair of hillbillies. Only it turns out the hillbillies are the heroes, at least by the end. Tucker (Alan Tudyk) has bought himself a "vacation home", a run-down cabin in the woods that was clearly the former home of a local serial killer. He brung his best friend Dale (Tyler Labine) out with him to help him fix the place up and make it a paradise. Along the way of course many nights of fishing and cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon would be enjoyed. They stop for supplies at the same store as the college kids, where Dale takes a shine to sexy blonde Allison (Katrina Bowden, much hotter and more girl-next-door than the Allison in The Babysitter) but his clumsy attempt to talk to her (carrying a scythe!) just creeps her out. She is rescued by Chad (Jesse Moss) and with Dale repelled the now creeped out college kids take off on their own wooded vacation. Tucker and Dale are in awe: though the cabin is really run down and needs a lot of work to even meet 1960 health and safety standards, for these rednecks it's a paradise. The college kids swap scary stories, and Chad tells the true story about the hillbilly serial killers who stayed in Tucker's cabin and how 20 years earlier they committed the "Memorial Day Massacre" against C&C Music Factory listening 90s college kids. The kids are so creeped out by the story they go skinny dipping for so long that it turns to night while Chad clumsily comes onto Allison.

Out at the lake Allison climbs onto a tall rock to join her "skinny dipping" (still wearing clothes) friends. She strips to her bra and panties but before she can strip down she catches Tucker and Dale leering at her in their fishing boat. She clumsily falls into the water and doesn't come back up, forcing Dale to dive in and rescue her. Unfortunately her friends misinterpret what it means when an unconscious Allison is slumped over Tucker's fishing boat and they run from the killer hillbillies, perplexing Tucker and Dale to no end. Chad gets an evil glean in his eye when told of the "capture", and the next morning Allison wakes up in bed with an earnest Dale trying to give her pancakes and misinterpreting her screams in fear as a dislike of pancakes. That alone almost made me shut off the movie. Who dislikes pancakes? But eventually Allison and Dale speak like normal people and even play board games while one of the college kids drives off to get the cops. Tucker doesn't get to play with the pretty college girl though, he has some wood to cut. Unfortunately his chainsaw cut into a wasp nest and Tucker is soon running through the woods waiving his chainsaw around trying to escape the bees. At the same time the college kids are approaching the cabin and they misinterpret (there's that word again!) Tucker's mad chainsaw run with an attack, and they flee. One of the college kids is too busy looking at Tucker to look where he's going, and he impales himself to death on a sharp stick of wood. This causes yet another hilarious misunderstanding as both groups think the death was deliberate but the other side was the culprit. Talking about his board game victory over Allison as if he physically assaulted her within earshot of the paranoid college kids wasn't Dale's best idea. Leaving creepy "we've got ur friend" messages in the woods wasn't his best idea either.

The gang decides to attack the cabin after seeing Allison help Dale built a hole for the outhouse (or Dale "making her dig her own grave" as the college kids misunderstand it), but their timing could have been better. One of them attacked Tucker while he was using his woodchipper and accidentally jumped into it while making the world's worst leap at the hillbilly. Another charges at Dale with a stick but trips and falls on it himself. Dale accidentally knocks Allison out with a shovel when turning to look at the yelling kid, and the college kids run away in fear. Tucker and Dale suspect the kids are part of a suicide pact, and fear that Allison got cold feet and they are trying to murder her to fulfill the pact. The college kids debate their limited options (no cellphone, no vehicle), and Chad is talking about their chance to truly live and fight the hillbillies to the death. It didn't take him long to go off the deep end, threatening to kill his fellow students if they get in his way. Meanwhile the cops (well, cop...singular) have arrived to confront Tucker and Dale while they are busy cleaning up the dead bodies of the college kids dying all around them. He doesn't follow police procedures very well even when he suspects they are guilty of involuntary manslaughter at the least, agreeing to come inside to check Allison to make sure she's okay. Unfortunately he leans on a weak spot in the house's superstructure and a board full of nails kills him. He stumbles back to the police car where one the college kids seize the cop's gun but manages to shoot himself instead. Chad finally arrives and starts using the gun with some skill, attacking Tucker and Dale and taking Dale's dog hostage. Tucker tries to save the dog but gets captured by the college kids who cut off his fingers as a message to Dale. Allison wakes up and doesn't believe Dale's story...until she sees the fingers and the note from her now-violent friends. Dale finally finds Tucker who was left as bait to lure Dale into a trap which only works if Dale approaches from one angle and stands in a specific spot...and instead he stood 4 inches away from it.

Meanwhile Chad comes to rescue Allison and starts throwing gasoline around the cabin. He again starts coming onto Allison, but Tucker and Dale return. Allison decides to use her psychology training and negotiate a settlement. Chad reveals that his mother was one of the victims of the Memorial Day Massacre and that his father was killed, explaining the source of his aggression and hatred towards the two hillbillies. Allison thinks she's making progress until two of the college kids burst in attacking everybody with a weed wacker (including the other college kids, by mistake). In the ensuring struggle Chad starts the gasoline on fire and it ends up killing two of the college kids. Tucker/Dale/Allison escape the cabin in the nick of time but one of the college girls grabs Chad and he's trapped in the burning cabin. He survives but horribly burned and now completely psychotic, attacking them all with an axe. Dale drives the trio away in Tucker's truck but doesn't keep his eye on the road and crashes into a tree (smashing the last thing Tucker had). Waking up from the wreckage Tucker tells Dale that Chad ran off with Allison, and after the two of them have a heart to heart where Tucker explains to Dale he's stronger than he thinks, Dale and his dog run off into the night to save Allison and stop Chad.

They track Chad to a nearby abandoned sawmill, and Dale breaks into the storage room to equip himself to be the kiler hillbilly that Chad is picturing: random pieces of iron as body armor, a chainsaw, and a welding helmet that looks cool and was clearly designed by somebody who had no idea how welding helmets work since Dale would be totally blind. He and Chad have an epic battle with sparks flying as Allison is slowly moving towards the sawblade like she's James Bond captured by Goldfinger. Dale manages to free Allison and the two of them escape to the upstairs office where they discover newpaper clippings revealing that Chad's father wasn't killed by the hillbillies...his father was the killer who raped Chad's mother and killed the other college kids. Between that realization and Dale's timely attack using Chamomile Tea, Chad stumbled out of a window and falls to his presumed death. Allison and Dale kiss and go on a date together while Tucker gets his fingers reattached (well, one was a college girl's fingers but close enough). The movie ends how it began, with an intrepid reporter investigating the sawmill only to be killed by Chad.

This movie was a lot of fun. As I said, it has a similar tone to The Babysitter but with more moments of comedy and less touching coming of age moments...though Dale's arc was more interesting and satisfying. This is probably because of the acting. Lewis and Weaving can't compare to the great performances by both Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine. Tucker and Dale are great characters who really come to life, and we enjoy watching their romp more because of it. Lighting wise this is the complete opposite of The Babysitter with a lot of dark lighting and constantly moving camerawork (which McG only used when Cole and Bee both nodded and the camera nodded along) that gives the movie a lot of its kinetic thrust. I'm not sure who would win in a sexy-off between Samara Weaving and Katrina Bowden, but I would totally watch that movie. Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil is the funner movie (and therefore the better one), and both have the same basic message: "don't be scared of the future, go out and seize what you want".

Both movies aren't horror movies per se. There are some horror shots popping up here and there but horror-comedy isn't really the style. Adventure-comedy with a few horror elements and a lot of gore (again, Zombieland), both are really good movies to have around when you want something Halloween-ish but you aren't interested in being scared out of your wits. You can be shocked and surprised, but most of the time during both films you'll be laughing and clapping along.

2017-10-19

After last night's miracle win forced a Game 5 in the NLCS, the Chicago Cubs have been eliminated 11-1. Clayton Kershaw pitched a 1-run game over 6 innings and the Dodgers shutdown bullpen shut...the...Cubs...down...setting a new MLB record for postseason shutout innings by a bullpen.

Now they come in as defending World Series Champions and while I sensed the whole time that the Cubs weren't the team of destiny they appeared to be last year, I was more hopeful of a win this year than last, bizarrely enough. After all, the Cubs followed up their 1907 World Series win with their 1908 World Series win...and then a century and change of heartache and disappointment. I was looking forward to a repeat of 1907/1908 frankly: two years in a row to make the fans think they have a dynasty, then the next few decades having those fans' children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren die having never watched a World Series win for their favourite team.

Now baseball is looking like it's going to get the New York-New YorkLos Angeles World Series, as the Yankees are flipping the script on the Astros.

But the Cubs aren't going to be in it. The Cubs aren't going down in history as the team that wins twice a row...every century or so. They remain a team in search of a new identity. I really think we had it.